Men's basketball: Seton Hall forever the renowned runner-up

In sports, the belief is that second-place finishers are forgotten. Champions are immortal, but the teams that came so close to their ultimate goal, only to fail, fade into the background.

And then there's the exception — the 1989 Seton Hall men's basketball team.

"Of all the teams that finished second in national championship games," Larry Keating, Seton Hall's athletic diretor in 1989, said, "I don't think there's another one that's more remembered."

"A lot of people still tell me," former Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo said, "it was as good a championship game as they've ever seen played."

On Monday, April 3, 1989, Seton Hall lost the NCAA title game to Michigan, 80-79, in overtime. The ending was controversial and heartbreaking. But the Pirates' remarkable run has been anything but forgotten. Tonight, the members of that team will reunite on the South Orange campus as the team will be inducted into the Seton Hall Athletic Hall of Fame.

So what makes the Pirates different? Why have they been able to stand the test of time and remain relevant despite being a runner-up?

Carlesimo said there were three primary reasons.

First, it was a good story.

"For Seton Hall, this was only the second time we were in the tournament," Carlesimo said. "And the perception from the public was, who is this team? … It was like, how did these guys get to the Final Four?"

The second reason? A great game with a controversial ending. Seton Hall overcame a 10-point deficit late in the second half to force overtime. The Pirates were leading, 79-78, with under five seconds left when they were whistled for a foul on Rumeal Robinson despite little contact. Robinson made both free throws and Seton Hall missed a game-winning attempt at the buzzer.

But Carlesimo believes his team, more than anything, is remembered for how it reacted in the face of that gut-wrenching defeat. There was no complaining, no angry tirades by players or coaches after the questionable call. Even on the court, players didn't recoil as the championship-deciding call was made by referee John Clougherty.

"I think that, without question, it's why so many people remember that game, remember our players, and remember Seton Hall," Carlesimo said. "I think if we had whined, said, 'That wasn't a foul; bull, we deserved to win,' it would have been just … yeah it was a good game, yeah it was still a nice story, but it would never have taken on what it is today."

And it wasn't an act. Twenty-five years after the call, Carlesimo doesn't speak about it bitterly. In fact, Carlesimo and Keating have been friends with Clougherty for years.

While the rest of the country was surprised that Seton Hall's run took it to the doorstep of a championship, there was no such surprise among the Pirates. Led by the starting five of John Morton, Andrew Gaze, Ramon Ramos, Daryll Walker and Gerald Greene, Seton Hall (31-7) proved quickly it could play with anyone and began the season 13-0. In the first three games of the season at the Great Alaska Shootout, the Pirates dispatched Utah, Kentucky and Kansas.

Still, they flew under the radar into the NCAA tournament as a No. 3 seed in the West regional. When the tournament started, Carlesimo told his players to pack for 22 days. Because their tournament games would be in Tucson, Ariz., and Denver, and finish in Seattle, there was no sense flying back to New Jersey multiple times.

After beating UNLV in Denver to advance to the Final Four, Carlesimo let his team get away from the hype for a few days. Because the school was on spring break, there was no studying or classes to be taken on the road. He told his players to pick any destination in the Pacific time zone to lay low and prepare for a couple of days. After strong urging by Southern California native and reserve guard "Pookey" Wigington, the players chose Santa Monica, Calif.

Back in New Jersey, media had enveloped Seton Hall's campus. Excitement was everywhere. But the Pirates were anything but celebrities in Southern California.

"It was good for us because we got a chance to kind of just soak in our success without any fanfare," said Jose Rebimbas, a reserve guard who is head coach at William Paterson. "There was no one that recognized us. We walked around with Seton Hall shirts and nobody was like, 'Oh, my God, here comes Seton Hall!' "

"What it did, in hindsight," Keating said, "is kept the kids grounded because we didn't experience all that hype. It wasn't until we got back that we realized what was going on in South Orange."

And when they finally returned to South Orange after 22 remarkable days on the road, the Pirates began to immediately realize they had struck a nerve in finishing second.

"People always say that they don't remember second-place finishers," Rebimbas said. "But I believe that we're probably going to go down as one of the most famous second-place teams in the history of the NCAA tournament."